UPDATE: Author identified (Ryan Douglas). Thanks, Ryan, for the great words. Original link provided at end of this post.
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“Y’all called Trayvon Martin a criminal and said he shouldn’t have fought back. Y’all said he shouldn’t have been out that late...in his parent’s fucking neighborhood. Y’all called him a thug.
Y’all said Tamir Rice shouldn’t have been playing with a toy gun. Y’all said he shouldn’t have been at the park alone...forgetting that MOST of OUR childhoods were spent playing in various places without adult supervision.
Y’all said Ahmaud Arbery shouldn’t have been in that neighborhood, shouldn’t have been in the construction site. Y’all said he should have complied with the men who literally ran him down like a dog and murdered him in the street.
Y’all said Breonna Taylor shouldn’t have known the man that police were looking for, the same man they already had. Y’all said her boyfriend shouldn’t have fired shots after their door was busted down in the middle of the night with no indication who was coming into their house.
Y’all said Amber Guyger was justifiably scared when she went into the wrong apartment and murdered Botham Jean.
Y’all said George Floyd deserved to die for past crimes that he already served his sentences for.
Y’all said Philando Castile shouldn’t have had the gun that he legally purchased, carried, and informed the officer of when that officer told him to reach for his ID and then murdered him.
When the Central Park 5 maintained their innocence, y’all said they were obviously guilty. When the man who would become the President demanded they remain in jail AFTER they were exonerated, y’all applauded him.
Every time a black man, woman, or child dies at the hand of some bitch trigger happy cop or some asshole piece of shit white person, y’all will extrapolate, insinuate, and justify as much as you can why that person should be dead. Y’all will place the blame on the victim and exonerate the murderer.
But when a 17 year old kid crosses state lines with a weapon he is not legal to possess, intentionally places himself within the protest, shoots someone, runs away, and then shoots two more people who attempted to subdue him for shooting the first person, then walks calmly right by police, and goes back home to another state after taking someone’s life, y’all call him a hero. Y’all say he did nothing wrong. Y’all say it was self defense. Even though HE illegally crossed state lines with a weapon, even though HE intentionally went looking for trouble, even though HE fully intended to pull the trigger, y’all are willing to defend him.
Y’all never said he should have complied with the people chasing him, like you said about Ahmaud Arbery. Y’all never said he shouldn’t have been there, like you did about Tamir Rice and Trayvon Martin. Y’all never said he shouldn’t have had a gun, like you did about Philando Castile.
This is why we say Black Lives Matter. This is why we take to the street and demand accountability. We never said other lives didn’t also matter. We said our lives don’t matter to you. Because they don’t. Y’all prove that every day. Y’all reinforce it every time you defend a murderer. Y’all make it widely known that when the black life is lost, they somehow deserved it. Y’all are quick to invoke abortion, but you don’t even care about the black lives that are already here, standing right next to you, let alone the ones yet to be born into a society that applauds the murder of black lives.
All my life, I have had to watch black men and women be profiled, harassed, beaten, unjustly arrested/incarcerated, and murdered, much of it on live tv. I have had to listen to/see white people all around me justify the continuous murder of black lives at the hand of callous and cowardly white people, police and civilian alike. I have had to restrain myself when I’m told that we should just comply, because y’all refuse to see and understand that whether we are innocent or guilty, whether we comply or not, our lives are forfeit and we are condemned.
Our blackness is an automatic target from the day we are born. And yet we are regularly told how much America has changed. We are regularly told how racism isn’t that big a problem...while actively being subjected to it. We are regularly told, by people who have never experienced it, who have never been subjected to it, who have never had to fight against it, that it isn’t real. And then we are told to trust and respect the same people who display it against us.
We are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty. We are supposed to have the right to due process. But the repeated murders of unarmed black lives by police and the subsequent justification in the court of public opinion proves that we are not privy to those rights. Kyle Rittenhouse will live to see his trial. He will be protected. He will get adequate legal defense for the crimes he stands accused of. Eric Garner didn’t. George Floyd didn’t. Philando Castile didn’t. Sandra bland didn’t. So many others didn’t. Too many others didn’t. Many more wont.
If you have never had to discuss with the mother of your mixed child how sadly glad you are that your son has more of her physical features than your own, so that he will not have that target on his back in this society, then you have zero room to speak to me on racial issues.
I do not say this for debate. I will not debate it. I will not answer any ignorant ass questions demanding an explanation of my words or experiences. They are clear enough and if you cannot understand them, then you are part of the problem. I will not expend what little energy I have left repeatedly explaining the same things over and over again to people who only seek to discredit black lives.
We fought a whole civil war and had a whole civil rights movement and the sad fact of the matter is that this country is the same as it ever was. It just hides its true face better.”
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